Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Passing Interest:

A Commentary

Walnut Creek, California, USA

January 18, 2011



This essay, Passing Interest: A Commentary, was written at the same time as I am indebted to Mehul Mehta and to Harsh Mehta and to Rainer Maria Rilke who inspired this conversation.



Calligraphy on plain paper by Werner Erhard

The Leadership Course
Being A Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership
An Ontological / Phenomenological Model

Asia Plateau, Panchgani, Mahārāshtra, India

7:00am Friday November 26, 2010



Etching on brass plate by Mehul Mehta

Nadiad, Gujarat, India

2:00pm Sunday January 2, 2011



Photography by Laurence Platt

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, Calfornia, USA

11:12am Wednesday January 19, 2011


This is one of my all time favorite quotes implying, as it does, the tangible, imminent possibility of authentic freedom and power  for everyone and anyone.

There's no business as usual dog eat dog  cutthroat competition here. There's no I-win-you-lose  mentality here - nor you-win-I-lose. This isn't Wall Street. It's not the Super Bowl  either. This is "IT". This is the spirit. And when the spirit wins, when IT wins, no one and nothing else loses. When IT wins, everyone  and everything  wins - with no one and nothing left out.

In many ways for many people this is profound. In many ways for many people this is beautiful. It's even sublime. In many other ways for other people, it's perplexing. It's confusing. It goes against the grain of what they've learned about how to get along, about how to survive in Life in what they construe to be a you or me  world. In particular it flies in the face of almost everything our capitalistic and sports crazy culture is about. The idea that if you  win I win also, simply isn't real for most people. And the idea that if I win you win also, is completely  unreal - that is to say, it's completely unreal given the interpretations we've made up about what it takes to live Life successfully on our planet.

The spirit ("the spirit" is who we all really are)  wants only that there be flying. What is "flying"? The spirit wants only that we ("we" is all of us with no one and nothing left out)  break through what's commonly and erroneously taken for granted about our limitations  ie what's commonly and erroneously taken for granted as impossible. By our limitations I mean our limitations of our ways of being, our limitations of what's possible for our ways of being, our limitations of what's possible for how we are for ourselves, our limitations of what's possible for how we are for each other. By flying I mean being in a way which soars above the commonplace. By flying I mean the triumph of transformation over resignation.

The spirit has no attachment  to whether it's he or whether it's someone else who happens to fly. Even if someone actually happens to fly, the spirit will write only a minor footnote about him or her ... that is, if he writes anything about him or her at all. The spirit has only a passing interest in whomever actually happens to fly. The spirit celebrates and acknowledges the accomplishment as if it's his own. But it's even more than that: the spirit celebrates and acknowledges the accomplishment as if it's everyone's.

Given the spirit is who we all really are, given the spirit is who each of us really is, Rainer Maria Rilke is speaking the possibility of each of us making flying happen for every one of us. This is genuine openheartedness. This is true sharing. This is also real empowerment  ie this is giving it away  to everyone. It's generosity to the nth  degree.

It's also pure selflessness. There's neither ego here nor expectation of reward. Not only that, but notice there's also a sense of inexorability, of inevitability  here. As the man says, "If I don't manage to fly, someone else will.".



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